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REWIND: Examining the Highbrow Hip-Hop of Jay Z’s ‘Picasso Baby’ Doc

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In this week’s episode of REWIND, we take a look at Jay Z‘s six-hour performance of Magna Carta… Holy Grail track“Picasso Baby,” which was filmed and made into a HBO mini-doc, Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film.

The marathon session took place earlier this month at New York’s Pace Gallery, with an eclectic cast of characters ranging from Judd Apatow to Wale to Alan Cumming stopping by to see Hova in action. The film will premiere Friday (Aug. 2) at 11 p.m. ET on HBO.

Jay isn’t the first musician to perform the same song for six hours straight, though. Back in May, The National performed their song “Sorrow” for six hours at MoMA PS1. Throughout the day, the indie rockers played the song 105 times in front of a dry ice display.

So does Jay Z’s performance connect the average rap listener to the highbrow art world? Melissa Locker, who’s written for Time, Rolling Stone, Stereogum and more, joins us this week to weigh in.